Jewish Students Bullied and Threatened at York University

Anti-Zionism is what holds Marxists and Islamists together.  They agree about no other subject.  Anti-Zionism leads to simple anti-Semitism.  Way back in 1968, during the New York teachers' strike, leftists were supporting simple anti-Semitism, as I wrote in my VILLAGE VOICE article, "The Left Is Soft on Anti-Semitism," published on March 6, 1969.

In their own countries, however, Marxists and Muslims persecute each other.  The USSR persecuted Muslims.  Chairman Mao suppressed Islam.  Marxists are not free to act or organize in Islamic countries.  However, Marxists and Muslims forgive each other when they unite to oppose Jews.

Foxman and the ADL bolster Antisemitic rhetoric by trying to present the entirety of US Jewry as monolithic and unquestioning in their support of Israel.

Last week the ADL released a telephone poll suggesting that US Jews overwhelming supported the Gaza operation.  I question the methods used in that poll, but whether it is accurate or not, Foxman is explicitly trying to tie an entire ethnic group in the United States to the actions of a foreign government.

Criticizing and lobbying against a foreign government should always be a legitimate action in a democratic society, but criticizing and generalizing an entire ethnic group, is and should not be legitimate in a democratic society.  When Foxman ties the beliefs, support, and loyalty of every single American Jew to the actions of a foreign government, he is aiding those who would like to present US Jews as a fifth column in the United States.  

I am not arguing that the majority of Jews didn't support the Gaza operation.  I am saying that there is an important difference between that, and intentionally promoting the notion that all Jews are united and monolithic in their beliefs and loyalties.

I have been assured by Ismail and Reality Check that this is just Zionist paranoia seeking to disparage the fine name of politicized Islam. Nothing to see here, folks!

However, Marxists and Muslims forgive each other when they unite to oppose Jews.

Reminds me of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

כהנא צדק

lbjack, when you sign you messages with Kahana Tzodek, you are violating the Jewcy comment policy, specifically “Comments that are racist, homophobic, sexist or otherwise bigoted or prejudiced are not allowed.”

For those who are unaware, Kahana Tzodek , or “Kahana was right”, is refereeing to Rabbi Meir Kahana, who was the founder of the Kach political party which was outlawed in Israel for being inherently racist in its ideology.  In Israel, those who write Kahana Tzodek on walls as graffiti, usually do so to suggest that Arab citizens should be forcibly deported out of the country. 

Although the modern Israel Beitainu party is beginning to legitimize some of the ideas of Kahana, it still stands that a past Israeli government deemed Kahanas proposed policies as racist, and I find it offensive that somebody continuously writing this statement in their posting is tolerated here on Jewcy.

However, Marxists and Muslims forgive each other when they unite to
oppose Jews.

The inexorable hand of history teaming up with God's invincible warriors? It's an alliance truly built to stand the test of time, right?!

It's almost sad to see how this alliance of convenience has gone from leaders  like Stalin, Brezhnev, Arafat and Nasser to the likes of mental patients like Carlos Latuff and dingbats like International ANSWER. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Note: any resemblance between Carlos and our own in house leftist revolutionaries for Palestine are purely coincidental.

Gil, you'll get used to it. When it comes to a certain type of racism, vitriolic Islamophobia and Kahanists are welcome at Jewcy. The fact that Kach is outlawed in Israel and still on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations is no problem for people like RW above and his friends (take a look).

As far as Lieberman and his party "beginning to legitimize some of the ideas of Kahana" goes, take a look at this (emphasis mine):

"Meanwhile the State Department is evaluating the
implication of reports that MK Avigdor Lieberman, head of Yisrael
Beiteinu, was a member of the extreme right group Kach. It appears on a
State Department list of terrorist organizations.

"If the Obama administration confirms the report that appeared last
week in Haaretz, and which was not denied by Lieberman, the Yisrael
Beiteinu leader may not be granted a visa to enter the U.S. The close
cooperation between Israel and the U.S. on matters of strategy,
defense, economics, commerce, tourism and transportation means that
ministers charged with relevant portfolios often visit the United
States.

"A new MK, Michael Ben-Ari of the National Union, confirmed that he
had been a member of Kach while it was headed by Meir Kahane and may
face similar restrictions."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1064162.html

P .S. We also shouldn't forget that lbjack's hero Meir Kahane was also the founder of the Jewish Defense League! Take a look to see what we are talking about here:

http://www.adl.org/extremism/jdl_chron.asp

Facts are stubborn things

The fact is that during the JDL's heyday, there was quite a bit of antisemitic attacks by the local blacks (I've got nothing against blacks, but history is what it is). If the ADL wants to deny this, and thereby besmirch the JDL, they're just engaging in historical revisionism. It'd be right up there with the ADL's insane notion that the Christian right is an enemy of Jews - heck, I'd bet that an Evangelical minister would be a far better Israeli prime minister than people like Netanyahu, Livni, and others of like mind.

And if anyone wants to speak of Kahane, please, at least don't speak of him as someone without popular support. He had no small amount of electoral support at the time of his being banned from Knesset (which is why the powers that be were so afraid of him). You may consider Rav Kahane to be a terrorist (I'll disagree), but to consider him a fringe is like those who considered Begin to be on the fringe, because they polled the English-speaking university intellectuals, and forgot to poll the Sefardi half of Israel, which overwhelmingly supported him. The newspapers in America proclaimed that Begin had no popular support, whereas he had a quite good majority!

And by the way, there is no way that comments in support of Kahane are "racist, homophobic, sexist or otherwise bigoted or prejudiced" and therefore "not allowed.” Rav Kahane never had anything against Arabs as Arabs; he only had anything against those specific Arabs who want to kill Jews; he had nothing against Arabs who were willing to be peaceful and law-abiding citizens, as Rav Kahane himself explicitly noted. If Rav Kahane was racist, then the Talmud too was racist when it said (the statement that Rav Kahane extensively relied on), "If someone comes to kill you, kill him first [in self defense]". But note that "someone" and "him", could just as well refer to Jew as to Arab - there is nothing race-specific in this statement; the statement only applies to those who are hostile, regardless of race, and not anyone is who is non-hostile. Pray tell, how is this statement of the Talmud racist? But if Rav Kahane was racist, then so is this statement of the Talmud, since this statement was the primary statement Rav Kahane was relying on. 

And by the way, this is precisely why I put little faith in the US's declaration that Rav Kahane and Kach were (are) terrorist. If, for the same of hypothetical illustration, terrorists flew a plane into a skyscraper, America would have no compunctions against blowing Afghanistan and Iraq to smithereens, in order to target those terrorists (and with G-d's help, not accidently injure any innocent civilians in the process). But when Rav Kahane advocates EXACTLY the same, he's a terrorist. Hypocritical double-standards, anyone?

Mike, I didn't say Kahana had no public support.  I am saying that those supporting his ideas are wrong and those ideas should be delegitimized.  The rational of your first argument is that since he had public support, that makes his positions legitimate.  By that logic, one could say that Hitler agenda was legitimate because, after all he had public support.  Total rubbish!

Then you make a religious argument bringing in the Talmud.  I clearly don’t know the Talmud as well as you, and maybe that makes me a bad Jew, but your argument is that Kahana couldn’t be a racist because that would mean the Talmud was also racist.  Maybe not the specific line you have cited, but aren’t you referring to the same Talmud that refers to the rules for purchasing and treating slaves?  I certainly don’t think its ridiculous to say the Talmud has racist notions in it.  Sorry if that’s a blasphemous thing to say, but your argument is bunk.

Your last argument is that Kahana didn't really have anything against Arabs.  That’s like saying the KKK doesn't have anything against Blacks, Jews, Asians, or Hispanics; they just want to get rid of all of them so they can have a purely white nation.

It doesn't much matter how Kahana justified his ideas (religiously or otherwise) because ultimately he advocated for the removal of citizenship and forced transfer of an entire group of people out of Israel based on nothing but their ethnicity.  If you think advocating for an idea like that doesn’t make you a bigot, than I guess we don’t have anything else to talk about.

Its one thing to argue about violent political and social conflicts, but if Jewcy allows this kind of overt racist stuff, specifically lbjacks continuous “Kahana Tsodek” message signature, than its really nothing better than any other pseudo intellectual website where people with entrenched political ideologies spew their hatred.

Gil, I agree completely that Kahane was an awful person with genuinely racist ideas, and that a number of his followers were responsible for some atrocious terrorist attacks. I don't think that Lieberman is either racist or a terrorist, but actually a pragmatist who wants to extricate Israel from most of the disputed territories and even divide Jerusalem based on Israel's strategic interests - positions that place him fairly well in the center of the Israeli political spectrum in that regard. It is hard to defame someone as a fire-breathing right-winger, when both the settlers and the haredim have castigated him repeatedly for his secular-right positions.

That being said, I have no idea why Jewcy should ban lbjack's "Kahane Tsedek" signature, when posters like Ismail and Reality Check have time and again denied the legitimacy of Zionism and minimalized terror attacks against Sderot without being banned.To me, those are far worse displays of hatred and bigotry than a tiny signature in favor of a dead extremist. Free speech means having to tolerate views that one considers unpleasant. 

This is depressing.  First I read this article about antisemitism on university campuses... nothing to get the day off to a good start like a healthy does of bigotry...  then I see all these defenders of Kahana in the thread, reminding me that us Jews have our own bigotry...  So there you have it.  A post that should have been about exposing hatred of Jews turns into a thread exposing hatred by Jews... 

I agree with Gil...Jewcy, please live up to your policy on racist comments and disallow this sort of trash. 

On another note... Jewcy really seems to be heading south. Articles like this are good and much needed. after all if we dont expose antisemitism, who will.  but i have not seen much in the way of critical essays that jewcy used to be famous for.  this used to be an edgy, indy, publication... now it seems to be taking a seriously conservative turn... but most jews are still liberal!!!  what are you guys doing?

Gil, let me respond point-by-point:

"Mike, I didn't say Kahana had no public support." - I wasn't replying directly to you; I was debunking a notion that many claim, and I thought I'd nip the notion before it even had a chance to be voiced.

"The rationale of your first argument is that since he had public support, that makes his positions legitimate." - Not at all. I explicitly said that despite his having support, others might still argue that he was racist. My point was that agree or disagree with him, please don't try to claim that he is on the fringe. Arguing that Rav Kahane was on the fringe is like arguing that Hitler was on the fringe. Being evil doesn't mean you're in the minority. On the contrary, if history shows anything, being evil makes you in the majority. So Rav Kahane was either right or wrong, and the level of his support doesn't change this, but don't try to argue that he was a fringe element without support; this is historical revisionism.

"Then you make a religious argument bringing in the Talmud.  ...your argument is that Kahana couldn’t be a racist because that
would mean the Talmud was also racist." - No. I meant that ONE specific line. If Rav Kahane was racist, then so is "If a man comes to kill you, kill him fiirst". But how can this line be racist, given that it speaks of a "man", Jewish and gentile alike? Is self-defense really racist? If so, please don't ever defend yourself against your attacker, but rather, "turn the other cheek".

As for the Talmud as a whole: "...but aren’t you referring to the same Talmud that refers to the rules
for purchasing and treating slaves?  I certainly don’t think its
ridiculous to say the Talmud has racist notions in it." - You're judging the a 2000 year old document according to your contemporary moral sensibilities. Professor Marc B. Shapiro, an Orthodox Jewish historian of Jewish theology, has pointed out the error of this thinking at http://seforim.traditiononline.org/index.cfm/2009/1/28/Marc-B-Shapiro-Th... . Professor Shapiro there writes, "The great classical historian Moses
Finley spoke of what he termed the "teleological fallacy" in the
interpretation of historical change. "It consists in assuming the
existence from the beginning of time, so to speak, of the writer's
values . . . and in then examining all earlier thought and practice as
if they were, or ought to have been, on the road to this realization,
as if men in other periods were asking the same questions and facing
the same problems as those of the historian and his world." The
fact is that earlier generations [of Rabbis] often thought very differently about
things. For example, we are much more sensitive to matters such as
human rights than they [the Rabbis of the Talmud] were. They took slavery for granted, while the
very concept of owning another person is the most detestable thing
imaginable to us. Followers of R. Kook [the father of Religious Zionism] will put all of this in a
religious framework, and see it as humanity's development as it gets
closer to the Messianic era. ... This leads to an issue that would require an entire volume to
adequately deal with it. This volume would trace the Orthodox
confrontation with changing values and show how Orthodox practices and
ideas have responded. ... R. Shlomo Aviner [a follower of Rabbi Kook] has the same approach [as Rabbi Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg, who says we should rule halacha according to the more "moral" view] (Am ve-Artzo, vol. 2, pp.
436-437) . He [Rabbi Aviner] refuses to say that any rishon [early medieval halakhic authority] was less moral than
another, but he notes that conceptions of morality change over time and
not every decision of a posek is an eternal decision. Today, when we
have different standards of morality than in previous days. If there is
a dispute among the authorities, we should adopt the position which we
regard as more moral. ... "

Professor Shapiro also quotes Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm (of Yeshiva University): "If anyone harbors serious doubts about inevitable changes in the moral
climate in favor of heightened sensitivity, consider how we would react
if in our own times someone would stipulate as the nadan [bridal price] for
his daughter the equivalent of the one hundred Philistine foreskins
which Saul demanded of David (1 Samuel 18:25) and which dowry David
later offered to him for his daughter Michal's hand in marriage (II
Samuel 3:14) . . . The difference in perspective is not only a matter
of esthetics and taste but also of morals."

Note the following quotation of Rav Kook, brought by Shapiro:

ואם תפול שאלה על איזה משפט שבתורה, שלפי מושגי המוסר יהיה נראה שצריך
להיות מובן באופן אחר, אז אם באמת ע"פ ב"ד הגדול יוחלט שזה המשפט לא נאמר
כ"א באותם התנאים שכבר אינם, ודאי ימצא ע"ז מקור בתורה.

Let me translate: "If a question arises regarding some Torah law, that according to an ethical notion it will appear that the matter needs to be understood in another way [than previous generations saw it], then, if truly the Great Sanhedrin will decide that this law was not stated except in some conditions [of the past] which no longer exist [and therefore, the law no longer applies], then surely this [ethical notion which motivated the change in law] has found a source in the Torah."

Professor Shapiro comments: "R. Kook was also "confident that if a particular moral intuition
reflecting the divine will achieves widespread popularity, it will no
doubt enable the halakhic authorities to find genuine textual basis for
their new understanding." ... R. Kook is not speaking about apologetics here, but a revealing of
Torah truth that was previously hidden. The truth is latent, and with
the development of moral ideas, which is driven by God, the new insight
in the Torah becomes apparent."

But regarding slavery in the Talmud, one must also realize that the sort of slavery the Talmud spoke of was NOTHING compared to American slavery. In fact, the Talmud (following the Torah) rules that if one injures his slave, the slave must be set free. This is hardly the sort of slavery that we are accustomed to thinking of. But this discussion would bring us far off topic.

But speaking of the Talmud being supposedly racist and immoral, especially against non-Jews, see my recent comments today at http://www.jewcy.com/post/when_jewish_dating_pool_dwindles?page=0#commen... and http://www.jewcy.com/post/when_jewish_dating_pool_dwindles?page=0#commen...

Let's move on...

Gil, you say, "Your last argument is that Kahana didn't really have anything against
Arabs.  That’s like saying the KKK doesn't have anything against
Blacks, Jews, Asians, or Hispanics; they just want to get rid of all of
them so they can have a purely white nation." --- No. The KKK DOES have anything against non-whites, just because they are non-white, period. It doesn't matter what the blacks do; just being black is an indictment in the eyes of the KKK. But Rav Kahane explicitly said he has NOTHING against Arabs per se; his only argument is against those specific Arabs who support terrorism. There is NO comparison between Rav Kahane and the KKK.

"because ultimately he advocated for the removal of citizenship and
forced transfer of an entire group of people out of Israel based on
nothing but their ethnicity." --- This is NOT Rav Kahane's argument. I agree that this is racism, but Rav Kahane never said this. Rav Kahane explicitly said that any Arabs who will be peaceful and law-abiding citizens, they will NOT be expelled from Israel.

Malcom X was right.

Is that more pleasing to thin-skin Jewish liberals?

Hey, wasn't the late Rabbi Meir Kahane (1931-1990) the first victim of Al Queda in America when he was murdered in New York and didn't famed left-wing attorney William Kuntsler defend his killer?

Or am I not permitted to ask these questions.

mikewinddale:

Here is the rabbi in his own words: "[...]instead of giving them accolades and medals for killing
the
Arab enemy (and they ARE the enemy -- all of them)", "I know that elections must be
limited
only to those who understand that the Arabs are the deadly enemy of
the
Jewish state", "to remove the
Arabs from the Land
once and for all"

Then there's this interview: 

Q: Are you intending to drive the Arabs out by military means?

A: Yes, obviously, but that
won’t be necessary for most of them. I’d offer financial compensation
for those who want to leave the country voluntarily. I would only use force
for those who don’t want to leave. I’d go all the way, and they know
that.

and 

Q: Your party, the Kach, has been accused of having close links with the Jewish
terrorist group TNT. You are believed to have planned attacks on mosques and
other similar actions.

A: I don’t like to
talk about these accusations. When someone calls me a Nazi, I don’t answer
him. I’m not obliged to answer every dog that barks. If you come to see
me with proof that I have committed such acts, then I’ll discuss it with
you. This doesn’t mean that I believe that such actions shouldn’t
have been committed. But I think that such actions are not opportune for the
moment. Because we’re soon going to be in the government. That’s why
people on the Left are afraid of us.
They believe that I have no political future in Israel, but they’re still
obsessed by me.

and

Q: Does that mean that Kach does not encourage violence, but if a member of
Kach commits acts of violence, you support him?

A: This applies not only
to Kach members, but to anybody. And I approve of anybody who commits such acts
of violence. Really, I don’t think that we can sit back and watch Arabs
throwing rocks at buses whenever they feel like it. They must understand that
a bomb thrown at a Jewish bus is going to mean a bomb thrown at an Arab bus.

and

Q: One of your paradoxes is that you respect the Arabs and their nationalism,
yet you want to expel them for precisely that reason. You also say that no Arab
is innocent. Isn’t that a racist comment?

A: Of course no Arab is
innocent.

Sorry for the shitty formatting all.

"Rav Kahane never had anything against Arabs as Arabs; he only had anything against those specific Arabs who want to kill Jews; he had nothing against Arabs who were willing to be peaceful and law-abiding citizens, as Rav Kahane himself explicitly noted."

Ah, Mike, wishing doesn't make it so. Kahane was quite explicit that the "demographic problem" demanded that a large Arab minority in Israel, even one with no murderous ambitions towards its neighbors, not be permitted to flourish lest the idea of a Jewish state go by the wayside. He never suggested that a politically significant number of peaceful Arabs in Israel ought to be allowed to live unmolested.

If you think different, please point us all to a statement of Kahane's which supports your reading of his policies, i.e., which differentiates between peaceful Arabs and nasty ones viv a vis who is welcome in Israel.

Of course, he was right about the political demands of Zionism-as soon as the demographics of Israel threaten its Jewish nature, democracy goes out the window. Like the cranky uncle who blurts out the family secrets over the Thanksgiving dinner table, he makes the the superficially more civilized members uncomfortable. 

Mike's efforts to rehabilitate an obvious racist with the same sort of legerdemain David Duke uses to proclaim his bona fides is insulting to those of us who walk on two legs.

I agree with the poster who noted the recent rightward tilt of this website. Sad.

Finally, while I applaud the refined sensibility of those who find the sigline of the jackster offensive, I am troubled by the call for banishment on the grounds of violating Jewcy policy. I think more mischief is done by well-intentioned calls for correctness than by the silly gradeschool pugnaciousness of the puerile tough guy lbjack. First they came for lbjack, then..... 

Said Rav Kahane, "...I know that elections must be limited only to those who understand that the Arabs are the deadly enemy of the Jewish state..."

jer, is this supposed to be troubling to me? Am I supposed to support suffrage for those who call for the fall of the state of Israel? What if the Nazi party relocated its central offices to Israel - would you expect me to support their right to vote in Israeli elections?

"Q: Are you intending to drive the Arabs out by military means? A: Yes, obviously, but..."

Is this also supposed to trouble me? If Rav Kahane called for expelling Nazis from Israel, should that also trouble me?

"Q: Does that mean that Kach does not encourage violence, but if a member of Kach commits acts of violence, you support him? A: This applies not only to Kach members, but to anybody. And I approve of anybody who commits such acts of violence. Really, I don’t think that we can sit back and watch Arabs throwing rocks at buses whenever they feel like it. They must understand that a bomb thrown at a Jewish bus is going to mean a bomb thrown at an Arab bus."

Now, THIS troubles me, let there be no doubt about it. But a few points:
1) This is hardly a prominent part of Rav Kahane's philosophy. In the hundreds of pages of his which I've seen, I've never seen this position of his be given prominence. In fact, were it not for an interview like this, I never would've given this teaching the time of day. With all the contacts I've had with Kahanists, I've never heard ONE advocate vigilante violence against Arabs. Apparently, Rav Kahane did not emphasize this aspect of his philosophy. One could read all of Rav Kahane's books, and come away without this notion of vigilantism. I personally know Rav Kahane's son-in-law, and a friend of mine trailed Rav Kahane's every speaking engagement, and NEVER have I heard either one justify vigilantism. We might note similarly, that there are plenty of ideas in the Rabbinic Midrashim, which are far from prominent. One midrash even suggests that the world has existed eternally, as opposed to creation ex nihilo, but has anyone here ever heard any rabbi cite this teaching recently with approval? Every bundle of wheat has its chaff. Plenty of times, the Rabbis made stray remarks which carried no weight, and this statement by Rav Kahane could be yet one more.

2) It troubles me morally, but only to an extent. Let me explain: do I oppose vigilante violence against Arabs? Yes, but mostly, because I believe the police and IDF ought to do their jobs and defend Jewish civilians from terrorists. Every time an Arab proclaims his desire for the fall of the state, and Israel does nothing, this is one more failure by the IDF, and victory by terrorism. For example, following the terrorist attack on Yeshivat Merkaz haRav, the terrorist's family had a mourners' tent, mourning his death. If the IDF had done their job, they would have quashed this memorial service, since it implicitly recognized that this terrorist was a human being whose death was worth mourning. (In the Jewish conception, a murderer has lost all right to live, for his feet defile the land upon which he walks. He has almost entirely lost his status as a human being. Only his death can bring atonement.) Even Jordan did NOT allow a mourner's tent, and yet Israel did - the Jordanians are more opposed to anti-Jewish terrorism than Israel is! If a Jewish vigilante had taken matters into his own hands, and dispersed the mourners, I would oppose this only insofar as (a) it looks bad, and (b) it leads to antinomian anarchy. But insofar as its own morality goes, I would have no objection.

As regards the Goldstein massacre: I additionally (besides (a) and (b) above) oppose this massacre insofar as it is not certain that all those inside the mosque were terrorist sympathizers. But if we suppose that all of those killed by Goldstein were terrorists (this assumption is NOT assured), I would have no qualms. It is because this assumption that all inside were terrorists is NOT clear, and perhaps some killed WERE in fact innocent, that I DO have moral qualms against what Goldstein did. Additionally, it looks very bad, and I'd much prefer that the IDF do its job, peacefully and without bloodshed if possible. But when the IDF fails to do its job, and justice can only be done by a zealot, it is very difficult to condemn the act unequivocally. Condemn it? I most certainly do. But uneqivocally, without reservations? I cannot.

It is worth noting that Goldstein himself, before the massacre, noticed signs of impending mental illness (Goldstein was an MD), and begged the IDF to relocate him somewhere far from Arabs. He warned the IDF that he'd go insane soon and do something immoral, but the IDF did not listen to him. So additionally, any guilt of Goldstein's falls on the IDF, not Goldstein. Had the IDF done its job, the Goldstein massacre never would have happened. Any murders by Goldstein, were actually by the IDF, and Goldstein is innocent.

So Goldstein, while he was still sane, himself would have opposed the Goldstein massacre, and I'd join him in this opposition. Let there be no doubt: I most certainl DO CONDEMN anti-Arab vigilantism.

To summarize: were someone to ask me to do what Goldstein did, I'd most vociferously refuse. If someone asked my advise on whether he should emulate Goldstein, I'd most vociferously oppose this too. But why would I refuse to justify emulating Goldstein? Two reasons:
1) It is not certain that every Arab who'd be hurt would be guilty; perhaps some innocents are present as well.
2) As far as appearances go, it is far preferable for a duly constituted army to do the act, than for individual chaotic antinomian vigilantes to undertake it. Moreover, the army is more competent to do the act properly, with due investigations, etc. An individual vigilante can only fire his M-16 on full auto, while the state can hold trials, imprison the guilty, exile the terrorists without bloodshed, etc.

Regarding "appearances" of unjustice as regards treatment of terrorists, cf. Rabbi Yehuda Herzl Henkin's Equality Lost (www dot urimpublications dot com). He proposes that theoretically, shooting a murderer to kill the murderer, while said murderer is prone and handcuffed, is actually morally justifiable. Only because it looks unjust to the unlearned spectator, is this denouncable. But assuming the murderer really is a murderer (which is not necessarily true; pending his trial, we cannot be sure, which is another reason to forbid shooting the subdued murderer), there is nothing immoral in killing the subdued and defenseless murderer.

-------------

Ismail:
"Ah, Mike, wishing doesn't make it so. Kahane was quite explicit that the "demographic problem" demanded that a large Arab minority in Israel, even one with no murderous ambitions towards its neighbors, not be permitted to flourish lest the idea of a Jewish state go by the wayside. He never suggested that a politically significant number of peaceful Arabs in Israel ought to be allowed to live unmolested. If you think different, please point us all to a statement of Kahane's which supports your reading of his policies, i.e., which differentiates between peaceful Arabs and nasty ones viv a vis who is welcome in Israel."

The Jewish Idea, by Rav Kahane. He quite explicitly upholds the Jewish law of the ger toshav, which demands offering domicile to righteous non-Jews who observe the Noachide laws, based especially on Leviticus 25:35. Were Rav Kahane to reject this law, he'd be a heretic. And Rav Kahane was many things, maybe even a terrorist, but he was no apostate from Judaism.

Also, in his presentation to the National Press Club, available on YouTube, he said the same. He said he doubted that any Arabs would consent to be non-Jewish foreign residents in Israel, but he said that if any were to accept this status of ger toshav, then indeed, they'd be permitted to live in Israel. And according to the halacha, a ger toshav living in Israel, the Jews have the OBLIGATION to sustain him and support him financially in his livelihood. And seeing as how this is clearly codified as law by the poskim, Rav Kahane has no power to dispute this. I'm assuming Rav Kahane was an Orthodox rabbi, and not an antinomian heretic.

(If anyone is incensed at my labeling someone a heretic for denying the binding nature of Jewish law, please realize that I say this only of someone learned in Jewish law, who knows full and well what he's doing. A Reform or Conservative person would not be a heretic here, since he cannot be presumed to truly understand what he is denying. Rav Kahane, on the other hand, had he denied the Talmudic law of the non-Jewish foreign resident, for whom we must proffer full financial support, would be a heretic, since Rav Kahane was quite learned in Jewish law.) 

If anyone accuses me of racism, let me note that I am the author of the words at http://archives2005.ghazali.net/html/respect_american_muslims.html, and I still hold by these words uneqivocally. I only think these words of mine are a bit unsophisticated and saccarhine, and could use some literary polish. But as far as the content itself is concerned, I still believe in this words as much as I did when I wrote them.

In fact, I was invited to be a member of my high school's Muslim Student Association, and indeed, I joined that organization and was a member until I graduated high school.

So if anyone accuses me of racism, please, reconcile my racism with those words, while you're at it.

I've explained elsewhere, and expain here for the last time . . .

In saying Kahane was right, I give the devil his due.  As obnoxious as his other views were, his basic thesis, that it is impossible for Israelis and Arabs to coexist in one state, is completely respectable, as is the thesis that Arab/Muslim culture has proved itself atavistic and irredeemable.  You may not agree with the theses, but to call them bigoted merely reflects your own sophomoric bigotry.

Every time the Arab/Muslims commit yet another atrocity against Israel or commit yet another barbarity elsewhere in the world, or every time Ismael and his friends slither out from under their rock, they validate Kahane.  The Two-State Solution is an admission that Kahane was right!

Every time terrorist sympathizers, like those reported in this blog, attack Jews, they validate Kahane. 

By the way, Genius, Kahane didn't want Arabs deported because of their ethnicity but because of their behavior.  Your phony intellect is based on the desire to parade your virtue, to show yourself off as nice, by glibly depicting Kahane as a Jewish Hitler and anyone who thinks Kahane was right as a bigot. 

You are the ilk which infest York U. and others.  Historical obtusensss and intellectual dishonesty:  only the narcissism of infants or the malignance of the Muslim mentality -- on display every day in the news and in posts here -- can account for such a dismal combination.

Speaking of which, it's truly rich, that while you fatuous cultural relativists blather on, we are treated to yet another validation of Kahane.  Of course, you'll trot out the usual platitudes and rationalizations, but I don't need to rebut them -- you do good enough jobs of owning yourselves.

כהנא צדק

 ...I know that elections must be limited only to those who
understand that the Arabs are the deadly enemy of the Jewish state..."

jer, is this supposed to be troubling to me? Am I supposed to
support suffrage for those who call for the fall of the state of
Israel? What if the Nazi party relocated its central offices to Israel
- would you expect me to support their right to vote in Israeli
elections?

"Q: Are you intending to drive the Arabs out by military means? A: Yes, obviously, but..."

Is this also supposed to trouble me? If Rav Kahane called for expelling Nazis from Israel, should that also trouble me?

The problem with those statements (and with your being untroubled by them) is that the questions were asked about "Arabs"; the fact that you think driving the Arabs out is equivalent to driving Nazis out only shows that for Kahane (and apparently for you too) all Arabs ARE the problem. It's also worth noting that the first question wasn't about extending suffrage to Arabs, it was extending suffrage to those who don't believe Arabs are Israel's mortal enemies. The correct analogy isn't to the Nazi party being allowed to vote, it's to people who support the right of the Nazis to vote being allowed to vote, which I think is far less controversial anyway, even putting aside the fact that comparing all Arabs to the Nazi party is, shall we say, problematic.

Your second point is a bit longer, so I won't discuss all of it right now, but I just want to say that this: "Every time an Arab proclaims his desire for the fall of the state, and
Israel does nothing, this is one more failure by the IDF, and victory
by terrorism." is outrageous; you are claiming that the IDF has a duty to interfere with Arabs who only proclaim things, regardless of whether or not they do anything. Aside from the free speech issues, I think even most censors would agree that the job of limiting free speech doesn't fall on the army. I'd also wonder: Does this apply to Jewish Israelis who want to see the state fall? What if they're anarchists, and opposed on principle to ALL states? Should their free speech be limited too? 

Since we all believe in free speech and the fair exchange of ideas, type the word KAHANE in YouTube or Google video and you can see and hear the man speak for himself. You may be surprised what you hear. don't worry, you will not turn into a pumpkin if hear what Kahane had to say.

Of course, he all but predicted exactly what is occuring right now including the danger of anti-semitism at the time of an economic collapse.

If you told him in front of an audience in say, 1990 that the Twin Towers would be destroyed by Arab terrorism, the whole room would be shocked except for him.

I absolutely do feel that those who call for the fall of the state,
or at least those who call for a violent overthrow of the state,
absolutely SHOULD have their freedom of speech curtailed.

Perhaps,
indeed, those who merely call, theoretically, for its fall, should NOT
be limited. If a Satmar Hasid voices his belief that Zionism is heresy,
or if a Christian or Muslim theologian declares that Jews should
convert, this is not so problematic. I do not feel that Christians and
Muslims should have to rewrite their eschatological expectations, for
example.

The issue is when MOST Palestinians (MOST is why I
feel it is legitimate to compare them to Nazis) support terrorism, or
when theologians send missionaries to convince Jews to convert; it is
these who truly deserve for freedom of speech to be curtailed.

If
you argue with my use of the word "most", let me ask you: have you seen
how many Muslim clergymen in the Middle East are constantly preaching
that Jews are pigs and that they must all be killed, etc.? There are
also popular shows on Syrian TV that teach the Protocols as being
historical fact. Have you seen how many Arab preschoolers are educated
while they wear camouflage and carry toy rifles? How many Jews have
been killed in terrorist incidents with nary a word from the Arabs
decrying these acts? The VERY SAME DAY of the Oslo Accords, streets in
Arab towns were closed to Jewish traffic (and they are still closed
today), because they were considered unsafe for Jews. A new road had to
be built from Jerusalem to the Jewish town of Beit El, circumventing
the Arab town that lies between Jerusalem and Beit El, because the old
road, which had been used for years, was suddenly no longer safe for
Jewish travel. And yet, somehow, it is NOT dangerous for Arabs to
travel through Jewish towns - pray tell, why? We're not talking about a
minority phenomenon here. Arabs can walk through Jewish towns without
fear, but when Jews accidently travel into Arab towns, the police
and/or IDF are called in to rescue these Jews - why? And this is not
something rare, or unheard of. Every few months, another Jew is stabbed
in the Arab quarter, but we never hear of an Arab being stabbed in the
Jewish quarter - why?

And yes, I do believe it is the task of the IDF, or the police, to
subdue rebellions against the state which might lead to violent action
aimed at its downfall. When Arabs proclaim that Jews should be murdered
or that the state must be destroyed, I absolutely feel this is within
the purview of the IDF and/or police.

So a Muslim kills his wife by beheading and this confirms jacko's opinion that Muslims are irredeemably bestial subhumans.

Do Bernie Madoff's crimes confirm the antisemite's opinion that Jews are rapacious goniffs? Only to the antisemite, of course.

Same difference. 

By the way, which "other views" of Kahane does jacko find objectionable? 

Yes Jack, go ahead and insult my intellectual abilities.  I will begin to be offended when you can make an argument that doesn’t include slandering and generalizing an entire group of people.  If you are the intellectual superior, you have an awfully simplistic worldview.  I guess those of us who see shades of gray are just deluding ourselves into thinking that you can distinguish between individuals and groups that make up over a billion of the worlds population.

In an attempt to bring this ‘discussion’ back to the posted article, I just want to thank you for doing you part in confirming the beliefs of those violent pro-Palestinian students up in Toronto.  Now when they want to argue that Jews are rabid anti-Muslim or anti-Arab, they have people like you to confirm it. Thanks!

"As regards the Goldstein massacre: I additionally (besides (a) and (b)
above) oppose this massacre insofar as it is not certain that all those
inside the mosque were terrorist sympathizers. "

Guys. Guys! Craig? Michael Weiss? The BARUCH GOLDSTEIN MASSACRE for god's sake!!!!! Are you listening?

THE BARUCH GOLDSTEIN MASSACRE!!!!!

Are you going to stop Kahanists from putting qualifications even into such a despicable act of mass murder by a deranged individual, killing 29 praying Palestinians and injuring 150?

What's wrong with you guys? WTF?

And Michael? I have it on good authority that you are trying hard to get your shot at 'welfare journalism', but don't you have any decency left? Allowing people here to rationalise the BARUCH GOLDSTEIN MASSACRE?

Have you guys completely lost it? Craig? CRAIG????

Facts are stubborn things

That's right Reality Check.

Shut them up. Silence them! Go tell mommy and daddy. Make the bad man stop!!!!

Sorry, I cannot effectively recreate the hysterical tone of your post and keep a straight face. LOL

Yeah, because you can support Kahanists here rationalising the unloading of an automatic Galil weapon at a room in the Cave of the Patriarchs by another Kahanist, resulting in the murder of 29 praying Palestinians and another 150 injured, and keep a straight face.

Congrats. 

Facts are stubborn things

Rationalize does not mean approve. I never said I approved of what he need; on the contrary, I pointed out that

1) I would never do such a thing,

2) I'd never counsel another to do such a thing,

3) If someone asked me whether he should do it, I'd vociferously oppose him doing so

4) Baruch Goldstein himself, were he sane at the time, would also have disapproved.

The fourth statement ought to strike you as particularly weighty. One of the strongest ways, in halakhic analysis, to prove a proposition, is to prove that even your opponent (who ruled contrary to the way you're about to rule) would agree with you in the present circumstances.

(For example, the Mishnah Berurah (an authoritive modern halakhic code), following the Korban Netanel (a commentary to the Rosh, in turn a medieval halakhic code), based on the Rosh, ruled that women may not read the Purim Megillah. But Rabbi Yehuda Herzl Henkin recently ruled that women may in fact read the Purim Megillah, and his logic was that based on the recently discovered manuscripts of another work of the Rosh (viz. Tosafot haRosh), even the Rosh and the Korban Netanel and the Mishnah Berurah would all change their opinions, were they alive today to see the new manuscripts.)

If, according to me, even Baruch Goldstein himself would not have committed the massacre, what more do you want out of me? To hang a poster in my bedroom proclaiming this fact?

I'm sure we're all mature individuals. Please, when discussing atrocities, we don't have to utilize flamboyant emotional exaggerations. Cannot you read some calm dispassionate reasoning without coming to the conclusion that my lack of emotional outburst indicates sympathy with what he did?

I'm sorry, but Judaism doesn't generally work by emotions. Most often, propositions are proven by cold logic. 

See, for example, "[Professor] Marc [B.] Shapiro Interview" by Luke Ford, at http://www.lukeford.net/blog/?p=2595
"You have to violate the Sabbath to save everyone [Jews and gentiles alike], but the reason given in the [traditional halakhic] sources is [amoral, pragmatic] utilitarian ([viz.] non-Jews won't save us if we don't save them). Rabbi Soleveitchik said he was troubled by this [amoral justification]. My point was that all legal systems have to operate in a legal fashion. That doesn't mean there aren't moral considerations pushing you, but those are not in themselves enough to get to the result you want. You have to go through the system, the halakhic rules. When you get to the utilitarian factor, that's the rule. That's the way to get to where you want to go. That no more means you are ignoring ethical factors than when a rabbi tries to free an agunah whose husband is missing [and thus, she is "chained" to her marriage, until her husband is either confirmed dead or returns alive]. He's certainly motivated by ethical factors, by great concern for the suffering of the woman, but that's not enough. You need to work within the system."

But just because going through the system with dispassionate cold logic is necessary, doesn't obviate moral considerations. Don't get me wrong: if someone refused to save a gentile on Shabbat, I'd regard him as a murderer, and I think most Orthodox would agree. So what of the cold dispassionate logic that was used to justify saving the gentile - does this not indicate his life is not so important? Not at all. The books contain cold dispassionate logic, and real life is where emotions and action are shown. In real life, were I to see Baruch Goldstein doing what he did, don't make any mistake: I'd do everything I could to stop him, including using a gun on him.

"As regards the Goldstein massacre: I additionally (besides (a) and (b)
above) oppose this massacre insofar as it is not certain that all those
inside the mosque were terrorist sympathizers. "

I thought you might wanna read what you wrote once again (emphasis mine). 

Facts are stubborn things

Yes, I remember what I wrote. You might notice the word "oppose" in
that sentence. In other words, "disapprove", "condemn", "criticize",
etc.

I disapprove of it, and condemn it, because it is not clear that it was warranted.

Now,
given conditions in Hebron, and the frequency of terrorist attacks
against Jews there (I have friends stationed as soldiers in Hebron who
have told me their daily routine, and it might be noted that a constant
IDF presence of about 20 or 30 soldiers is necessary to ensure the
safety of Jews there; about every 20 to 30 feet is another IDF soldier,
in full battle dress, on the entire road of the Jewish section), I
don't feel it is unlikely that many of those killed by Goldstein were
in fact terrorists or terrorist sympathizers. Certainly, every time a
Jew has been killed in Hebron, I haven't heard an outcry from the Arab
community condemning it. Not so long ago, Jews in Hebron had to line
their homes with sandbags, because EVERY DAY, a torrent of bullets
would fly from the Arab side to the Jewish side; note that no bullets
were flying in the opposite direction. (Oh, and there's the time that a
sniper rifle was used to kill a Jewish infant in her stroller.) But it
is not certain that they are guilty (though evidence shows it is not
unlikely), and their guilt is only speculative, and so I cannot approve
of any vigilante actions taken, without having first secured proper
evidence.

This is why I'd much prefer the IDF to take action:
they have the ability to secure evidence and target those who are
guilty, while taking every possible measure to ensure the innocent are
not hurt. Goldstein, of course, was not able to do this, and therefore
I condemn what he did

I might also note that I live about a five
minute walk from the Merkaz haRav massacre, and I learn in fact, in its
partner institution. You could here the gunshots (from the terrorist's
gun) from where I am. If anyone here wants to take sides in the
Israeli-Arab conflict, I suggest you first learn what it's like to live
here.

Look up "Shalhevet Pass", the 10-month old infant that a brave and courageous Palestinian freedom fighter killed with his sniper rifle, intentionally too (as far as evidence can determine).

I read that late last month, the police in Israel sealed up the home of the perpetrator of the Merkaz haRav shootings. Any word on the state of Goldstein's home?

And I wonder if you extend to Alaa abu Dheim the same understanding you award to Goldstein, whose psychiatric condition you insist mitigates his actions. After all, the Merkaz shooter was, according to those who knew him, an apolitical and friendless loner who seemed never to discuss politics until the Gaza assault which occurred just before the shootings, after which time he became sleepless and obsessed. Let's see, friendless, apolitical, rapid change for the worse in mental status, sudden uncharacteristic violence-sounds like a case for psychiatric disturbance to me.

Compare to Goldstein, whose premorbid tendencies were quite political exactly in the direction you'd expect from a slaughterer of innocents on account of their being Arabs. That is, his criminal activities were of a piece with his...well, I'll say less criminal ones, whereas abu Dheim's were startlingly divergent.

So if you want to exculpate the savage Goldstein, I think you'd better extend the courtesy to the more obviously deranged abu Dheim.

And militate to seal up the good doctor's family home. 

"If anyone here wants to take sides in the
Israeli-Arab conflict, I suggest you first learn what it's like to live
here."

May I request that you never again utter such a brainless suggestion? By your standard, I may not pronounce upon the behavior of FEMA in New Orleans, having the good luck to reside in the northeast, nor may I venture an opinion about abortion, lacking as I do a womb. Did you have an opinion on the Iraq war? Were you there? For that matter, since you have not lived under the constant assault of one of the world's largest armies, your opinions about the behavior of Gazans would have to be considered worthless (they are, of course, but not on the grounds of your residence).

All of us have opinions despite our not being omnipresent direct witnesses of all the world's events. These opinions stand or fall based on the degree to which they comport with historical fact and the rules of logic, among other things, but most certainly not based on our direct participation.

Just to drum this obvious truth more completely into what I suspect is a resistant skull, consider that many people who actually do "live here" have opinions different from your own. How then does residence in Israel confer authority upon one's beliefs, when the latter may be different between any two Israelis? (In fact, if the old joke is accurate, those two Israelis, if they are Jewish, will have three opinions).

So let's agree to forego such a witless and lazy avoidance of engagement as declaring that, e.g., the opinions of Israelis are perforce more sound than the opinions of those of us who prefer to not reside in that rapacious and belligerent rogue state, shall we?  

If you argue with my use of the word "most"

This whole argument started because you were defending Kahane (and presumably yourself) from the charge of  believing that all Arabs are the problem. I pointed you to quotes that showed that, Kahane believed that, actually, all Arabs are indeed the problem. You responded by justifying Kahane's claims. So which is it; is Kahane opposed to all Arabs, but justifiably so, or is he being misrepresented here? Because you can't have it both ways.

As to your contention that "most" Arabs are terrorist sympathizers (which makes them fair targets for being murdered*), someone who cannot unequivocally condemn the Goldstein massacre, and whose biggest reason for condemning it was that it is bad PR, should maybe look to the beam in his own eye first.

* "I additionally (besides (a) and (b) above) oppose this massacre insofar
as it is not certain that all those inside the mosque were terrorist
sympathizers" This implies that if all those inside had been sympatizers even, not just terrorists, you would not have opposed the massacre. 

Jer: "So which is it; is Kahane opposed to all Arabs, but justifiably so, or
is he being misrepresented here? Because you can't have it both ways."

I didn't have it both ways. Kahane explicitly said that he has no problem with any Arabs who consent to be loyal, law-abiding citizens. In particular, in The Jewish Idea, he explicitly supports the Talmudic law of the ger toshav. He opposed "all Arabs" only insofar as he doubted that any would actually take him up on the offer of being a loyal law-abiding non-Jewish foreign resident, but he noted that hypothetically, if any Arab does request such a status, he would be glad to proffer it.

How many times do I have to say this? No matter how many times you say that Kahane opposed "all Arabs", that statement simply isn't true.

And you say that my "biggest reason for condemning it was that it is bad PR" - this isn't true. Another of my reasons, the primary one (PR was an afterthought by me, but apparently, this didn't sit well with your agenda, so you had to reorder my concerns) is that it isn't clear that everyone whom Goldstein killed, was actually deserving of this. In other words: it is possible that Goldstein murdered innocents. In other words: it is possible that some of those whom Goldstein killed, were killed by him unjustly. In other words: if brought to a Jewish court, Goldstein could be found guilty of murder, depending on the evidence brought. What more do you want out of me?

You say, "This implies that if all those inside had been sympatizers even, not just terrorists, you would not have opposed the massacre." You're absolutely correct: anyone who sympathizes with the terrorists, and support their activities, and promotes their murdering of innocent Jews, yes, I think they deserve death, yes. Why shouldn't they? Are you really so soft on the murders of innocent civilian lives? Perhaps you sir are the one in need of introspection.

Let me rephrase my analysis of Goldstein: Imagine a town, 100 years ago, known prominently for hosting a KKK chapter (and this is back when the KKK would sponsor hangings). All of the members of the town are very friendly with the KKK members, although not all of the townspeople are actually members of the KKK themselves, and not all of them actually take part in Klan activities. Suddenly, a black man bursts in and shoots wildly, killing many. Do I support this black man's actions? No - perhaps some of those he killed, somehow were not actually guilty and deserving of death. But all the same, it is not unlikely that those townspeople he killed were nevertheless complicit in the KKK's activities, and very likely, all those people killed (members of the KKK and not) were actually deserving, to one degree or another, of death. So, do I support this black man's actions? No; I'd rather the police do their job and quash any racist violence by the KKK in a just and orderly manner. But if a black vigilante takes matters into his own hands, I cannot unequivocally oppose his actions. Were I able to, I would certainly stop this black man, and I'd never take this vigilante action myself. But after the fact, can I unequivocally call this black man a murderer? No I cannot; after all, this entire town was prominent for its warm and friendly stance towards the KKK. As for PR: certainly everyone would agree that this black man did nothing to aid the civil rights movement, correct? No matter how just it may be, it's not going to help convince the whites that blacks are equal human beings.

---------

Ismail:

Regarding the sealing of homes: I'll admit that I'm not learned enough in the reactions of Goldstein's family, to be able to determine whether they deserve their home sealed. But given that the Merkaz haRav shooter's family DID sympathize and support his actions, certainly their home deserves being sealed. But I'll admit that I lack the proper knowledge to be able to voice an opinion on Goldstein's home. If you provide a source, I'll voice an opinion.

As regards this Merkaz haRav shooter being mentally unstable: perhaps he was, in which case, I'll forgive him. But what of the hundreds of other terrorists? If they were all motivated by mental illness, then I propose that rather then rounding up all the Palestinians and deporting them, we instead round them all up and put them in mental institutions. After all, if so many Palestinians are mentally ill like this, we cannot trust them to live their own lives. Ismail, take your pick: deportation or institutionalizing?

And Ismail, you make me into a straw man: I said you should learn what it is like to live in Israel, not that you (or anyone else) has to actually live here. The news regarding the conflict is so tremendously one-sided and biased, that most in the world are tremendously unfit to voice an opinion. Has anyone else here heard of "Pallywood"? In brief: much of the footage shown on international television, regarding past Israeli-Arab conflicts, was actually doctored footage, without any relationship to reality.

Has anyone else here heard about Jews in Hebron having to sandbag their homes, while their Arab neighbors did not have to do the same, since the Jews were not firing bullets at them? The world news simply does not like to report such things.

Similarly, the world decries how Arabs have their mobility limited by checkpoints, but no one seems to notice that Arabs can enter Jewish towns, while Jews cannot enter Arab towns. The world simply does not find such facts useful to its agenda.

Congratulations to the moderators for having the courage to resist hysterical and infantile calls for censorship on this thread.

Many on the right say the left does not really believe in free speech.

Thank you for not proving them right.

(and now for my pompus, money shot signiture phrase)

Facts are stubborn things.

Don't want to interrupt the flow of a dialogue that has been more interesting than most of late, other than to note Ismail's truly bizarre understanding of the notion of authority:

"Just to drum this obvious truth more completely into what I suspect is a resistant skull, consider that many people who actually do "live here" have opinions different from your own. How then does residence in Israel confer authority upon one's beliefs, when the latter may be different between any two Israelis? (In fact, if the old joke is accurate, those two Israelis, if they are Jewish, will have three opinions)."

It would appear that Ismail believes that anyone in possession of the same facts and experiences will come to exactly the same opinion on a given matter. In other words, a lack of consensus on a given matter alone invalidates one's claim to intellectual authority on it. I find it interesting that an otherwise intelligent (well, at least superficially) person would hold to such a corrupt understanding of authority - namely one where conformity confirms its validity. But given the source, I shouldn't be surprised.

I'm also unsurprised at the constant equivocation in that post between an opinion or belief, and a fact or product of induction/deduction. But that's just par for the course on Ismail's putting green.

"Opinions are like assholes, everybody's got one."

Whoever said that was on to something.  

I believe it was the videogame "Fallout", a 1998 post-WWIII-nuclear-apocalypse RPG. I forget which character therein, but it was one of them.

I'm not entirely sure, but I'm pretty sure, that the videogame character was NOT quoting someone else. But I may be mistaken.

-------------

Anyway, Isaac, I think Ismail's point, was that he thought that my point, was that anyone living in Israel would agree with me. In other words, he thought I was disqualifying anyone who does not live in Israel, and qualifying only those who do in fact live in Israel, and that I was assuming the latter (viz. people living in Israel) would all be Kahanists.

If that's what my intent was, Ismail's observation would be completely correct. Were I to disqualify anyone not living in Israel, and/or if I were to assume all Israelis are Kahanists, then indeed, Ismail's criticism would be right on the mark.

Isaac, what you attribute to Ismail, viz. "It would appear that Ismail believes that anyone in possession of the
same facts and experiences will come to exactly the same opinion on a
given matter.", is actually what Ismail thought to attribute to me.

I've since clarified that what I meant, was that only those who know what's it's like to be in Israel (whether they agree with me or not, and whether or not they actually live in Israel) should be allowed to voice an opinion.

"You say, "This implies that if all those inside had been sympatizers even,
not just terrorists, you would not have opposed the massacre." You're
absolutely correct: anyone who sympathizes with the terrorists, and
support their activities, and promotes their murdering of innocent
Jews, yes, I think they deserve death, yes. Why shouldn't they? Are you
really so soft on the murders of innocent civilian lives? Perhaps you
sir are the one in need of introspection."

No comment.

Facts are stubborn things

How many times do I have to say this? No matter how many times you say
that Kahane opposed "all Arabs", that statement simply isn't true.

Again:

"instead of giving them accolades and medals for killing the Arab enemy (and they ARE the enemy -- all of them"

"elections must be limited only to those who understand that the Arabs are the deadly enemy of the Jewish state"

"to remove the Arabs from the Land once and for all"

"I would only use force for those who don’t want to leave. I’d go all the way, and they know that"

"Of course no Arab is innocent"

You can argue that these statements are not representative of his views, but last time I posted these, you said you were untroubled by them (well, the ones you responded to). As in, you didn't disagree, you defended the sentiments. 

But I will retract what I said about PR being the biggest reason not too; I think I was reading more into the Herzl Henkin argument at the end; I still think it's outrageous that you'd be unwilling to unequivocally condemn it, but I will admit that I misrepresented your reasons.

As to your other point, it's fine to disagree with freedom of speech. Well, no, it's not fine, but there's an argument to be made. But that people can deserve death for believing the wrong things? Seriously? How long do they have to hold this belief for before they qualify? I don't think there is anything that someone can think that makes them deserving of death. For once, I'll agree with lbjack, and say that I'm far more concerned with what people do. "Are you really so soft on the murders of innocent civilian lives"; this comment in particular really bothers me. The whole point is these people are not the murderers! If you can't tell the (moral) difference between a murderer and someone who makes excuses for a murderer, then I'm going to suggest that really it's you who needs to go introspectin'.

Your KKK analogy doesn't convince me either; I'm sure that the black community would be, if not supportive, certainly not condemnatory towards the actions of the attacker, and so, your same argument would then justify the KKK's attacks against the black community. And indeed, your argument justifies Palestinian suicide bombings too: look at how the community in Hebron regards Goldstein (Kach issued statements in support of Goldstein's actions); why shouldn't we say that Palestinian terrorists are, if not justified, at least not murderers, since "this entire town was prominent for its warm and friendly stance towards [Goldstein/Kach]"?

So no, Goldstein was a terrorist; the only defense I'll tolerate is that he was insane. Kach support and encourage terrorists. Comments of Kahane's, and the attitudes of his followers, indicate that he (and certainly his ideology) promote/d terrorism. Since right-wingers here tend to get so down on moral relativism, I'll give it a try too: if you can't understand why murdering dozens of people is bad, and why supporting the murder of people is bad (even if those people support murder themselves), then I doubt there's anything I can say to convince you. 

And, since I've already agreed with lbjack this thread (twice, if you count my rejection of moral relativism!), I'll go one further and agree with Alcove-One too: even Kahanists have a right to their opinions, and a right to express them. It doesn't look like Jewcy ever considered censorship here, and I'm glad they didn't, and I hope they never do.

Jer, the difference between those who support Arab terrorists, and those who support R' Kahane and Goldstein, is that:

---
Were the IDF, and Goldstein, and Baruch Marzel, and every other Jewish
extremist, to lay down his weapons forever, he'd have a very short
life-expectancy before Arab terrorists killed him.

--- By
contrast, were the Arab terrorists today to all lay down their weapons,
the Jewish extremists and terrorists would do the same.

Even
if Baruch Goldstein is unequivocally a murderer, can we really draw any
comparison between him and his Arab counterparts? The Jewish extremists and terrorists are motivated by
self-defense. Even if they are immorally murdering innocents, their
motivation in the first place was self-defense, even if it did perhaps
lead to immoral actions. Were the Arabs to lay down their arms, even the Jewish terrorists would reciprocate. But the Arab terrorists were never motivated
by self-defense; their very first motivation was nothing other than to
drive the Jews into the sea, as they themselves openly admitted. So if the Jews were to lay down their weapons, it'd just make them easier targets.

Therefore,
if the Arabs drop their weapons, they'll have peace with the Jews, even
with Goldstein and Marzel. If the Jews drop their weapons, there soon
won't be any Jews.

Similarly, the hatred between blacks and the KKK was entirely one-sided, entirely a fault of the KKK. Were the KKK to drop their racism, no black would ever desire to kill them. But were the blacks to surrender to the KKK, it'd just make it easier for them to be enslaved.

And this is another reason why it is so
difficult for me to equate Goldstein with Arab terrorists, even if
Goldstein is a murderer. Were the Arabs to drop their weapons, there
never would be a single Jewish terrorist. Even if Goldstein IS a murderer, which perhaps he indeed is, nevertheless, he'd NEVER have done what he did, if the Arabs would just renounce their terrorism, once and for all.

----

As for Rav
Kahane's believing that "all Arabs" are the enemy - AGAIN, you have to
read him in context with what he said elsewhere. Elsewhere, he doubted
that any Arabs would accept peace, so he assumed they'd all be the
enemy. But he conceded that hypothetically, if any accepted peace, he'd
let them live in Israel. Since he doubted how likely this was, he
elsewhere spoke of "all Arabs" as enemies, but he never dropped the
theoretical hypothetical acceptance of some Arabs as non-enemies. When
he spoke of "all Arabs" being enemies, he was being imprecise, for the
sake of brevity; he didn't want to rehash his hypothetical argument
every single time, because it was so obvious. The Talmud speaks of the
ger toshav - does Rabbi Kahane have the authority to deny this Talmudic
law???!!! Not any more than he has the authority to declare pork to be
kosher.

Thus, I have difficulty unequivocally condemning people like Goldstein and Marzel, because I know that even if they are murders or sympathizers of murderers, nevertheless, they were forced into this position by the Arabs. Were the Arabs to renounce terrorism once and for all, people like Goldstein and Marzel would never have to take up arms; they'd live as peacefully as Ghandi.

I believe this is along the same lines as what Golda Meir famously said: "We can perhaps forgive you for killing our children, but we can NEVER forgive you for forcing us to kill your children."

Perhaps Goldstein and Marzel are murderers/sympathizers-of-murderers. But they were forced into this position; it was not of their choosing.

By contrast, the end to this conflict is ENTIRELY within the hands of the Arabs.

My mother also puts it well, as she is fond of saying: "I hate to hate another human being. But the Arabs make it awfully hard."

"My mother also puts it well, as she is fond of saying: "I hate to hate another human being. But the Arabs make it awfully hard."

That sounds like a famous quote from Kahane which often comes to mind while hearing from some contributers to this site.

"I don't hate Arabs, I love Jews...and that's not easy"

Were the IDF, and Goldstein, and Baruch Marzel, and every other Jewish
extremist, to lay down his weapons forever, he'd have a very short
life-expectancy before Arab terrorists killed him.

The IDF maybe belongs on that list, but Goldstein?! You think it's necessary to slaughter innocent people to keep Jews safe? Also, there's a difference between laying down one's weapon forever and laying it down temporarily when not in imminent danger. I don't believe you seriously think "immorally murdering innocents" can ever overlap with "self-defense" because if so, I hope you never get your hands on anything sharper than a butter knife. I'm not even going to start on Marzel, other than to note that this is a guy who calls for killing other Israelis. I'd ask how that can possibly be construed as self-defense, but I don't think I really want to know what sort of justification you can come up with for that. 

But he conceded that hypothetically, if any accepted peace, he'd let them live in Israel -Um, here's how Kahane saw that peace: "He
does not have and cannot have national rights in Israel. He can have civil rights,
social rights, but he cannot be a citizen; he won’t have the right to vote.
Again, whether he’s Arab or not." Yeah, I can't imagine why Arabs don't want Kahane's peace. And just in case you're wondering under what terms the Arabs are going to be allowed to leave: "I'm not asking anybody
to accept them. I’m going to hold the bridges on the Jordan river; we’ll
hold them for two weeks. We’ll evacuate the Arabs and let Jordan go to
the United Nations." Basically: stay in our country, but you can never be a citizen, or head on out, and hope that the next country you get to treates you better than we do. If that's "peace", then so was Jim Crow. So was apartheid. 

"You think it's necessary to slaughter innocent people to keep Jews safe?" -- I never suggested anything remotely like that. I cannot fathom what that has to do with anything I wrote.

My point was that were it not for the Arab terrorists, the Jewish extremists/terrorists wouldn't be distinguishable from Ghandi. THIS, if nothing else, distinguishes them from the Arabs. The entire conflict is entirely in the hands of the Arabs. If you ask me, every Arab terrorist killed by the IDF, ought to be classified in the same category as Jewish civilians killed by the Arab terrorists. Because in the end, anyone killed, Jewish or Arab, is ultimately killed because of the Arabs. The Arabs ought to be held culpable for murder for every Arab terrorist killed. Every Arab child who is brought up in an environment of martyrdom and jihad, is another human being the Arabs have murdered.

Even the Jewish murderers are not fully culpable, because were it not for the Arab's instigation, the Jewish terrorist never would have engaged in the act. The Arab picked the fight, and even if the Jew's response was unethical and illegal, it was the Arab who picked the fight in the first place, after all. If the Arabs would drop their weapons now, the Jews would drop theirs as well, and the entire conflict would end. Yes, the entire Israeli-Arab conflict could end this very day, today even, if the Arabs would just drop the conflict now. It's entirely on their side of the court.

Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Berkovits has noted that for Holocaust survivors, the worst thing that Hitler did, was not that he killed their families. Rather, the worst thing Hitler did to them, was to rob them of their faith in G-d. To kill their G-d even, according to Weisel. For a religious Jew, who lost his faith in the Holocaust, THAT was Hitler's greatest evil. If so, I think that for the Jewish extremists, the worst thing the Arabs have done, is made it necessary for them to contemplate murder. Queue Golda Meir's quotation. The last thing Goldstein and Marzel would like to be doing is holding a gun.

In America, whenever I look at a Muslim, or anyone else, I don't have to wonder if he'd kill me were he to meet me in a dark alley. On the contrary, I was a member of my high school's Muslim Student Association. In America, if I heard that someone burst into a mosque and shot everyone, I wouldn't have to think twice to realize that this was cold-blooded murder. But in Israel, the Arabs have made it necessary for me to think twice; because of them, it isn't immediately clear that this is murder. I have to actually wonder whether or not this is murder. I have to actually take more than a nanosecond to contemplate this. And for this, I cannot forgive them. Perhaps I can even forgive them for murdering us. But I can NEVER forgive them for making me have to look askance at them.

------------------------------

Jer, you note that according to Rav Kahane, "He can have civil rights, social rights, but he cannot be a citizen; he won’t have the right to vote."

So? If I'm not mistaken, Switzerland has similar laws. Look, not every country is America. America was created explicitly to be a country of all ethnicities and religions, but Israel was not. Israel is a Jewish country. If non-Jews can elect its leadership and control its direction, then, pray tell, what makes it Jewish? If the Arabs want a nation that offers equality to all ethnicities, they can go to America. If they want a Muslim country, they have plenty. If they want a Jewish country, there's Israel. But Israel is not obligated to be America-junior.

Therefore, as per the law of the ger toshav, Israel is obligated to give full socioeconomic privileges to all its inhabitants, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. But political rights? If non-Jews can vote, what makes it a Jewish country? What if non-French could vote in France? Non-Turks in Turkey? Why, then, should non-Jews be allowed to vote in Israel? I don't understand your double-standard.

If, for example, Germany or France or any other country, were to offer me domicile, but deny me suffrage, I wouldn't complain. Why should I deserve suffrage in those countries without naturalization? I cannot understand why Arabs deserve suffrage without naturalization.

In all the years of the diaspora, Jews NEVER complained that we lacked suffrage. Our complaint was NEVER that Poland and Russia denied us suffrage. Our only complaint was that they denied us life and livelihood. For after all, we were not Poles, we were not Russians. We were foreigners, guests in their home. A guest does not complain that he isn't allowed to choose the menu.

"You think it's necessary to slaughter innocent people to keep Jews
safe?" -- I never suggested anything remotely like that. I cannot
fathom what that has to do with anything I wrote. 

"Were the IDF, and Goldstein, and Baruch Marzel, and every other Jewish extremist, to lay down his weapons forever, he'd have a very short life-expectancy before Arab terrorists killed him." If Baruch Goldstein had laid down his weapon, i.e., not killed innocent people, he would be dead (well, he is anyway, but you know what I mean). Thus to not die, i.e., to keep himself, a Jew, safe, he had to pick up his weapon, i.e., kill people. Unless you think Goldstein is famous for using his weapon for other things.

I'm not going to address your other points separately, because I have the same response to them. The reason it's not quite correct to claim that the Arabs started the fight, and the difference between Switzerland and Israel, is that the Arabs were minding their own business when Jews came and decided to claim the Arabs' land and build a country on it. The Arabs living in Israel didn't decide to move to a pre-existing Jewish state; they found themselves part of one entirely against their will. Similarly, I suspect most people would turn to violence if a group of foreigners came and started taking their land to build a country on. Arabs are not "guests" in Israel (well, some are, but not Israeli Arabs or Palestinians); they are the original homeowners, disposessed. 

Alright, two more points addressed separately, I lied:

If you can't see that killing unarmed people is murder, that's not the fault of the Arabs. 

And if you think it's terrible that every time you see a Muslim you have to worry what he will do to you, imagine what it would feel like to be an Arab interacting with Israeli soldiers when this happens. Should they forgive Israelis for making them wonder if the next soldier they see will be the one who shoots them in the stomach for no reason?

"Were the IDF, and Goldstein, and Baruch Marzel, and every other Jewish
extremist, to lay down his weapons forever, he'd have a very short
life-expectancy before Arab terrorists killed him."

AH-HA!!! Sorry for the ambiguity - I see why you misunderstood me. My intent was NOT that hurting civilians is necessary to ensure safety. I was not speaking of what justifies Jewish violence, but rather, what causes it, whether the Jewish violence is justified or not.

My point was a dramatic one: were the entire Palestinian people to drop their proverbial AK-47s all at once, peace would come. But were the Jewish people to collectively drop their proverbial M-16s, that would simply make them easier sheep to the slaughter. It is difficult to have sympathy on the Arabs, when all their suffering is ultimately self-afflicted.

In other words, my point was a moral-sociological one, viz. that the Arabs alone are the agressors, and any Jewish violence, just or unjust, is motivated solely by the conflict which the Arabs alone fuel. By contrast, the Arabs have it completely within their hands to halt and cease this conflict once and for all, at whichever moment they cease.

Therefore, where Goldstein et. al. come into this is that anything they do, just or unjust, untimately stems from Arab agression alone. Does this justify Goldstein' et. al.? Not necessarily. But it is much harder to condemn Jewish violence against Arabs, when the Arabs themselves are the ones ultimately to blame, when they are the source of the motivation. 

To illustrate: if a bully picks on another student, and the student finally violently attacks the bully and gravely wounds him, this does not mean that the student was justified in doing so to the bully, but ultimately, was it not the bully who was at the root of the problem? If the bully had simply ceased his abuse, there never would've been any further altercations.Guilty as the abused student may be, the bully is just as much to blame for his own suffering.

---------

"is that the Arabs were minding their own business when Jews came and
decided to claim the Arabs' land and build a country on it. The Arabs
living in Israel didn't decide to move to a pre-existing Jewish state;
they found themselves part of one entirely against their will."

What about the Jewish state that was in Israel before the Arabs came from Arabia? You seem to forget that the Arabs have only been in Israel since around 700 CE or so. What about before then? As Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook used to ask, "After how many years does stolen property become the property of the thief?". If Israel belongs to the latest conqueror, then the Jews have rightfully taken it from the Arabs. If, on the other hand, it is as you hold, that Israel belongs to the original inhabitants, then, once again, the land is Jewish - even according to your logic. Unless you'll please enlighten me, your position seems entirely baseless and illogical; you are basing ownership neither on original inhabitation (which is Jewish) nor on latest conquest (which is also Jewish); so what, pray tell, are you basing it on?

In other words: if 19th-20th century Jewish settlers have not the right to take Israel from its Arab inhabitants, why did the 8th century Arab settlers have the right to take it from the Jews?

Therefore, when you say, "Similarly, I suspect most people would turn to violence if a group of
foreigners came and started taking their land to build a country on.", you entirely miss the point; Jews are as far from foreigners as water is from being wet!If anyone is the foreigners, it is the Arabs who only came in the 8th century CE, some 2200 years after the Jews first came!

You say, "Arabs are not "guests" in Israel (well, some are, but not Israeli Arabs
or Palestinians); they are the original homeowners, disposessed." If so, if the Arabs are the "original homeowners", then the Jews are the owners of the soil upon which the Arabs built their homes. So the "original homeowners" the Arabs may be, but they still have to pay rent!

blank

I don't agree that there is a distinction between Arab violence and Jewish violence such that all Jewish violence can be understood as responsive. Any individual Arab who uses violence may have been pushed to it by Jewish violence against Arabs. As in, someone who was a perfect pacifist, and never dreamed of so much as stepping on a Jew's toes, may have turned to violence after the Goldstein massacre. This person may have decided to kill Jews because he no longer felt safe living amongst people who were willing to do such horrific things. That Goldstein did those horrific things because he felt that way about the Arabs is meaningless; this individual Arab is not responsible for the violence done by other Arabs, probably a lot of it before he was even born. Even if we can trace the chain of violence back, and see that it was started by Arabs (and I'm not sure that that's even true), that only justify violence by Jews against Arabs if you believe that all Arabs are complicit in violence done by other Arabs, even if that violence was done before they were born. I don't know if I'm making my self clear here, but I'm trying to say that any individual Arab may feel just as threated at the prospect of putting down his gun as Goldstein did; only if you treat the two peoples as monolithic blocs does your analysis even make sense. An Arab can kill a Jew in self-defense (and thus, his motivation makes his actions less of a crime, according to you), even if that Jew's reason for killing Arabs is also self-defense.

Original habitation of the land is of course not Jewish, even by the Biblical account. You may recall a series of wars fought against Phillistines, Moabites, Canaanites, Jebusites, etc., etc., etc. Further, even if they had been, the Arabs did not take the land from the Jews, they took it from the Byzantine empire, who inherited it from the Roman empire, who conquered it from the Jews. 

Anyway, I don't have a hard and fast system to decide who owns land; I think all sorts of factors play, including historical ownership, and current settlement. So I think both people have a claim. Which is why I don't think Jews living in Israel should be expelled. Still though, for a people who have been living on that land for over a thousand years, I think they deserve a little better than to be kicked out or forced to live as non-citizens in someone else's country, and they have a right to be mad (I don't tend to support violence, but I can certainly understand what the motivation for their violence is) when people act as if they have no rights to the land. They may not have sole rights, but they certainly have some.

"Jews came and decided to claim the Arabs' land and build a country on it."

Perhaps it happened that way, Jer. Or perhaps Jews first starting building a country on the land before anyone made any claims to it on their behalf that anyone else took seriously. Perhaps the ordering of events matters.

In 1919 King Faisal I of Iraq (who was then King of Syria, before the French expelled him), signed the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement. He wrote:

We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our delegation here in Paris is fully acquainted with the proposals submitted yesterday by the Zionist organization to the Peace Conference, and we regard them as moderate and proper.

The designation of not just "Palestine" but the entire Middle East as "Arab Land" - an assumption implied by what you write, undercuts not only Jewish rights, aspirations and claims but those of the Assyrians, the Kurds, the Berbers - all just as indigenous as those Mizrahi Arabs (and Mizrahi Jews). And Shia. And Copts. And Druze. And so on.

The biggest mistake made by outsiders in their efforts to rectify Palestinian grievances is an unwitting appropriation by those who go beyond any legitimate goal of Palestinian nationalism or dispossession, and actually don't mind putting others in service of the idea of the Middle East as some grand sort of falsely homogenized, mythical Arabian patrimony. The aforementioned minorities are usually aware of this folly, and they see no use in promoting what has become nothing more than a skeezy offshoot of previous efforts at maintaining Arab-Muslim hegemony. Westerners, not so much.